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Book. 






DISCOURSE 



DELIVERED UPON THE OCCASION OF THE 



funeral tiDtoiquie* 



OF 



PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 



APRIL 19, 1865. 



BY 

REV. S. REED, 

PASTOR M. E. CHURCH, EDGARTOWN, MA! 



BOSTON: 

PRESS OF GEO. C. RAND & AVERY, 3 CORNHILL. 

18 65. 



IDtecourse 



DELIVERED ON THE OCCASION OF 



THE FUNERAL OBSEQUIES 



PRESIDENT LINCOLN, 







APRIL 19, 


180 5. 








By REV. S. 


REED, 




PASTOR M. E. CHURCH, EDGAR TOWN 


, MASS. 




i 


BOSTON: 




Press 


OF 


Geo. C. Rand & 
1 8 G 5. 


Avery, 3 


CORNHILL. 



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WA5M 



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.TT: 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



EDGAETOWN, April 19, 1SC5. 
Rkv. S. Reed. 

Sir:, — At a meeting of the Committee appointed by the citizens of Edgartown to 
make arrangements for the appropriate observance of the funeral obsequies of President 
Lincoln, it was unanimously resolved that a copy of the very excellent and appropriate 
discourse this day delivered by you be respectfully requested for publication. 

Appreciating the kindness which induced you to consent, upon so brief a notice, to the 
request of the Committee, that you would speak to the people burdened with sadness and 
sitting under the shadow of the terrible affliction which has converted this entire nation 
into a house of mourning, 

I am, sir, 

With the highest respect, 

Yours truly, 

RICHARD L. PEASE, 

Chairman. 



Mr. E. L. Pease, and Gentlemen of the Committee: — 

If the publication of the discourse which it was my Fad duty to deliver to you to-day 
will, in your judgment, promote the happiness of any one in our now sorrow-stricken 
nation, I cheerfully comply with your request. I am aware, however, as you doubtless 
are, of its many imperfections, arising in part from the brief time in which it was pre- 
pared. Hoping you will receive it, as I most certainly give it, as a sincere tribute of affec- 
tion to the memory of our beloved and lamented President, 

I am 

Yours truly, 

S. REED. 
Edgaktown, April 19, 1865. 



DISCOURSE. 



" Shall not the Judge 'of all the earth do right?" — Gen. xviii. 25. 

Abraham had long been an anxious spectator of the 
awful degradation of the cities of the plain ; and, when 
the decree of the Almighty was communicated to him, 
that the sword of vengeance should be unsheathed, he 
saw its justice and he murmured not. But when he 
thought of the few probable righteous in the cities, 
and could see no way for them to escape the im- 
pending ruin, his great heart melted with sympathy, 
and he began to question the wisdom and goodness of 
the divine proceeding. But his questionings were as 
blind as they w T ere ill-timed ; for, as yet, God had com- 
municated to him only a part of his plan, and had not 
told him that if a sufficient number of righteous per- 
sons were not found to move divine forbearance, yet 
what few there were should be led forth by his holy 
angels to a city of refuge. Abraham misjudged the 
character of the wonderful providence which he was 
told was about to take place, because he judged before 
the designs of God in that providence were fully un- 
folded. 

From all the information he then had, it was apparent 
to him that the righteous must perish with the wicked ; 
and the justice of such a providence he distrusted. 



This distrust arose from his ignorance of the divine 
plan ; and so do men often fall into doubt and disbelief 
when they attempt to inspect and pass judgment upon 
the doings of the Almighty. They behold but parts of 
his ways ; they see but one link in the great chain of 
his providence, — the one right before their eyes ; and, 
failing to see the good and benevolent results which 
that chain unites to God, they conclude, in their igno- 
rance, that the ways of the Lord are not equal. 

In examining the providence of God, we should be 
careful not to form our conclusions from those parts of 
it which are visible to our own eyes, at the present 
time, and immediately around us. We should search 
for the most probable effect that such and such parts 
are designed to have upon men at large. We should 
study God's designs, not only in the external and super- 
ficial changes that affect society, but w T e should trace 
those designs down deep into the human mind and 
character, and we should follow them outward and on- 
ward to the boundaries of his moral government. 

There are events in human life which reveal the wick- 
edness of man and the holiness of God in such appar- 
ent proximity as to fill the mind with the most profound 
and solemn questionings ; events which force the soul 
to the resources of eternal Truth. Such are the events 
transpiring around us at the present time ; and in their 
light we come to inquire — 

WHAT ARE THE LIMITATIONS OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE IN HUMAN 

CONDUCT ? 

1. Man is a moral agent, therefore free. God created 
him free, therefore the creation is "right;" and here 
we see providence. But his being man implies the 
possibility that he may sin. Should God make it im- 



possible for him to sin, he would make him something 
else than man. 

"Why," it is often asked, "does not God prevent 
such and such acts of wickedness ? " I answer that he 
could, doubtless, prevent all acts of wickedness ; but he 
would then prevent the power of obedience also, for 
the possibility of virtue in a probationer implies the 
possibility of vice. If, therefore, it is wise and good in 
God to grant to men a term of probation, it is wise and 
good in him to grant to them the possibilities of virtue 
and vice ; and the power to commit great acts of wick- 
edness is but the power to perform great acts of virtue. 

2. We see the providence of God in the restraints 
which he throws around men everywhere to deter them 
from the commission of sin ; and, on the other hand, in 
the inducements which he everywhere affords to men to 
the performance of virtue. These restraints and incen- 
tives are always of the same holy character, and they 
are presented with a force as great as can possibly con- 
sist with men's freedom. If the power of right motives 
were increased upon men, their power of resistance 
must be correspondingly increased ; hence nothing 
would be gained to. virtue. 

3. We trace the providence of God, also, in working 
continually against the results of sin, yet all the while 
in perfect accordance with man's freedom. 

In all the history of the race we see God bounding 
and counteracting sin so that it shall not become uni- 
versal. 

Though he cannot prevent men from wrong-doing 
without making them something else than men, yet he 
does overrule the results of their wrong-doing; he 
does press their wickedness into his own service, and 
" make their wrath to praise him ; " he does bring light 
out of darkness and good out of evil. Whatever may 



be the malignity of the vicious, however deep the tur- 
pitude of their crimes, God will not suffer consequences 
to flow therefrom which he cannot control. 

From this stand-point we come to-day to look upon 
our bereavement ; and, though we meet under a cloud 
of unwonted gloom, which has been caused by a fellow- 
being, yet we will remember that the " Judge of all the 
earth doeth ri«jit." 

An act has been performed by an American citi- 
zen which strikes horror to the hearts of millions ; 
an act the results of which reach farther than the 
shores of a continent, which will shock the entire civil- 
ized world ; an act which will pass into human history 
as the most unparalleled in atrocity since its great 
archetype was performed at Mount Calvary. 

A brutal assassin, thirsting for the most precious of 
human blood, steals to the presence of the unsuspecting 
Magistrate of this nation, and, with plans laid with 
fiendish precision, delights in a deadly aim which 
pierces the hearts of all Christendom. By that assas- 
sin's hand our beloved President now sleeps in death ; 
and now a nation has met, as never a nation met before, 
to mourn his loss. The lamentation is as wide as our 
land. The weeds of woe which hang around this tem- 
ple to-day, and which are so consonant with the feelings 
of our hearts, stretch away from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific shores, and from the northern lakes to the south- 
ern gulf. There is not a city, or town, or hamlet, or 
family, where loyalty and humanity dwell, but is in 
mourning at this hour. As one great family the Ameri- 
can people now sit in silent grief, bereaved and desolate, 
a common affliction binding: all hearts in one universal 
brotherhood of sorrow ; every heart feeling, " all thy 
waves and thy billows are gone over me." God, 



!) 

what an hour of gloom is this ! What sadness we feel ! 
So sudden, so mysterious, so aggravating, such crushing 
sadness ! We look through our tears to thee, God, 
and we try to discern thee. Oh, may we behold thee ! 
may we even seen thy hand, and our mourning shall be 
hushed, and we will know that the Judge of all the 
earth will do right ! 

And, my hearers, let us prayerfully inquire to-day, 
Can ive behold a Providence here? What 'part has the Lord 
performed in oar bereavement, and what part has he not per- 
formed ? 

It is true God gave to the assassin, or the assassins, 
freedom. He made them men, and endowed them with 
those high powers which, in their perversion, have 
wrought such ruin. But with the gift of freedom 
comes the fact of accountability. The murderers of 
our President are guilty, and the law of the righteous 
Judge connects their guilt with its punishment. They 
can be punished, because, being free, they committed the 
crime. And here we see providence in that those 
bloody fiends are bound to the judgment. The eternal law 
binds them there, and He says " Vengeance is mine, I 
will repay." No power in the universe can dissolve the 
relation between crime and its punishment. Great is 
the anxiety in the American nation to-day that the 
guilty ones may be arrested, in order that they may be 
brought to justice. Let not our anxiety at this point 
be mistaken. Should they be arrested and punished, 
the punishment would have respect only to human 
laws, and* be designed only to protect human society ; 
it could not meet the claims of God's violated law ; nor 
could it come up at all to the measure of their guilt. 
Whether or not those men elude the vigilance of civil 
officers, and the penalties of human laws, thank heaven. 



10 

there is a Providence "that shall by no means clear the 

guilty? 

We see God's providence, also, in the restraints which 
were thrown around the assassins to prevent the com- 
mission of their deed. They had been restrained by 
fear of detection, by the vigilance of the people, if not 
by their own consciences. They had been foiled in 
their plans again and again, since the first dark plot was 
formed for the President's murder four years ago ; and 
even now they were unable to carry out the awful plot 
to its completion. 

But further than this, in the act which bereaved our 
nation of its head, Providence had nothing to do. Tell us 
not it was the hand of the Lord that took Abraham 
Lincoln from us. His hand was stretched out to restrain, 
not to put forward the assassins; to preserve, not to 
kill, the President. There was no providence in his 
murder, any more than in any other wicked act that 
man ever did. "It was an enemy that did this," 
an enemy that both planned and executed the deed. 
It was not the hand of Providence that did this stu- 
pendous wrong; it was the great, black hand of the 
Devil, and there shall the wrong rest. 

And this distinction between the spirit of evil, which 
prompts men to wicked deeds, and the spirit of the 
Lord, which only prompts them to good, will save us 
from distrust and despair. 

And this leads us again to inquire — 

WHAT IS THAT SPIRIT WHICH IS THE SOLE PRODUCING CAUSE 
OF OUR BEREAVEMENT THIS DAY? 

Mr. Lincoln falls not as a usurper, to indemnify injured 
rights. Kings and emperors have been assassinated ; 



11 

but it was by those whose rights to dominion had been 
violated, or who expected to ascend the throne when it 
should be vacated. But our President was no usurper. 
He was elected to the chief magistracy by the free 
choice of a free people. There was not a human being 
on this footstool whose rights had been injured by his 
occupancy of the national chair. 

Mr. Lincoln falls not by the hand of the midnight 
robber who thirsted for his gold. It was no ordinary 
spirit of covetousness, though that spirit has tasted the 
blood of untold millions, that thirsted for his. It was a 
spirit feller and fiercer far than that. 

Mr. Lincoln falls not for any abuse of power placed 
in his hands, nor for the practice of any personal vices 
that made him odious to the people. Other rulers have 
practised, and have forced upon their people, such intol- 
erable vices, that assassination, always a crime, became 
their excuse and their relief. But Mr. Lincoln had no 
vices that aillicted the people ; neither was there the 
least approach to any thing like the spirit of tyranny 
manifested through all his public career. In the admin- 
istration of the duties of his high office, as in the more 
private walks of life, he was ever the same man of 
kindness and of genuine sympathy with his fellow-men. 
Coming from the ranks of the people, his heart was in 
closest union with the people. Their welfare was his 
welfare ; their joy, his joy ; their sorrow, his sorrow. 
His hand grasped with like cordiality the hand of the 
statesman, the mechanic, or the day laborer; and all 
classes of honest people received a welcome to his pres- 
ence, and a blessing from his lips. 

No: it was the spirit which has drenched our land in 
blood, the spirit that has raised the greatest rebellion 
known in time, that slew our President. 



12 

Booth, the murderer, is but one among the tens of 
thousands of his kin ; and, viewed in reference to the 
spirit that produced him, he is a most insignificant par- 
ticle, like a flake of black cinder thrown from the mol- 
ten bowels of a volcano. 

Booth was but the tool of the confederacy ; the plot 
was the plot of the rebels ; and when he leaped upon 
the stage, and shouted " Sic semper tyrannis I " he but 
shouted the rebels' w r atchword. 

That plot embraced, doubtless, not only the President, 
bat the Vice-President, the Cabinet, and the Lieut.- 
General. The spirit that planned it is older than the 
Rebellion, as the father is older than the child. It has 
lived a century and more in this country, and has fat- 
tened and thrived upon the richest heritage, and under 
the best human government, ever given to men. 

The genius of that spirit is the genius of barbarism; 
it is the soul of tyranny, the breath of indolence, and 
the life of lust. See this dark spirit of hell ! At first 
it only demanded sufferance while it might die ; but, 
instead of dying, it began to grow, and to assume gi- 
gantic strength, making demand after demand, receiving 
concession after concession, until it overrides the Con- 
stitution, paralyzes the Government, and debases the 
sacred ermine of justice in the State and Federal courts. 
It grasps the Bible, and first it blots and blurs all its 
parts which speak of human freedom and the equality 
of men ; next it enjoins silence upon the pulpit ; then 
commands it to proclaim the divinity of this horrid 
thing. It presses the majesty of theology into its 
service, tears churches in twain, and makes doctors of 
divinity advocate it on their knees. It then seizes the 
reins of national government, unfurling its black banner 
over this entire land of freedom. Because rebuked 



13 

and checked at this point, it then plots treason ; steals 
the property of the Government, bribes her officers, 
butchers her citizens, knocks down her best senators, 
hangs her ministers, and lays its bloody hand on her 
flag to rend it in pieces. Thus this dark thing lifts 
itself up in the light of our Christian civilization ; and, 
with eyes gloating over the downfall of freedom and 
reliinon, and with heart swelled with the glut of human 
innocence, it shouts, Though a million of freemen die, //el 
slaver// shall lice ! 

And so has this spirit sought to lay the foundation 
of its black monarchy in our midst, resting on the 
hearts, and pressing out the sighs and tears, of millions 
of human beings. This is the spirit, which, for four 
dark years, has been hanging its weeds of woe in all our 
homes ; which has been drinking the blood of our 
brothers, husbands, and sons; which has starved them 
in barbarous prisons; and has laughed at their dying 
groans. This is the spirit that has murdered our noble 
President. Abraham Lincoln falls the victim of slavery, 

THE MARTYR OF LIBERTY. 

We will now inquire — 

WHAT ARE THE RESULTS WHICH WE MAY HOPE DIVINE PROV- 
IDENCE WILL CONNECT WITH THIS SAD EVENT? 

For He who is all-wise, whose eyes are everywhere, 
beholding the evil and the good, saw that the assassin 
would clo the deed. Because he is good and wise, we 
must believe that he is ready to connect with the deed 
results that shall be glorious to humanity. Such is his 
prerogative, and such his pleasure; and many of the 
most blessed dispensations of mercy to our world have 
been brought forth from its deepest crimes. Great and 



14 

glorious were the results which God brought out of the 
wicked sale of Joseph by his brethren ; greater, more 
glorious, the results he brought out of the sale of Jesus 
by Judas, the great prototype of Booth; and great 
shall be the results which God will draw from this deed 
of monstrous birth, if we are willing to receive them. 
And, 

1. We may believe that he would lead the American 
people to a more profound recognition of himself. We 
have "forgotten God," — so said President Lincoln in 
his immortal inaugural. Men are prone to creature 
worship : so has it ever been. The great men of the 
past, who, under God, have been the benefactors and 
deliverers of the people, were then exalted and deified 
by the people, while the giver of their blessings was 
forgotten. Had Mr. Lincoln lived longer, who can say 
but we should have ascribed to him the glory that was 
not his ? We might have lost sight of the omnipotent 
arm that had wrought our victories for us. As a peo- 
ple, we might have sinned in glorifying the creature; 
and our danger of this was very great. We loved our 
Lincoln, and we almost thought he was our strength 
and our deliverer; but God had said, "I am a jealous 
God, and my glory will I not give to another." Mr. 
Lincoln saw this clanger of ours, and he warned us 
against it. More than any other president since John 
Adams did he ascribe all the glory of our national pros- 
perity to the Divine Being, and earnestly did he call 
upon us to seek the favor of the Almighty in order to 
success. Mr. Lincoln recognized the divine arm, during 
all our struggles, mysteriously directing events so as to 
preserve our nation ; and he was not the man to arro- 
gate to himself the glory that belonged to God. 

And we are this day reminded that we can lean on 



15 

no human arm. The greatest and the best of human 
rulers are as the "flower of the field ;" in a moment they 
are cut down, and are hidden from our view. But, if in 
our hearts there is a profound regard for the righteous- 
ness of God, we shall be preserved, even though our 
rulers fall before our eyes. 

2. From this event there shall spring forth a holier, 
stronger bond of union to this nation. Reaching, as it 
does, to the very depths of the human soul; stirring all 
its most holy sympathies ; rousing all its sense of justice, 
honor, right, — this event will be more mighty on the 
hearts of oncoming generations than laws or armies. 

The influence of the grave of a patriot, a statesman, a 
deliverer, is nrysterious and powerful over the human 
mind. The graves of some kings and conquerers do 
more for their people than the reign of some living 
monarchs. England could not spare the grave of Wel- 
lington, and for what would America part with the grave 
of Washington ? 

See that young prince, heir to the proudest throne 
on the globe, as he visits our Republic a few years since. 
Apparently uninterested, he passes through our crowded 
cities, and over our broad States, till he comes to Mount 
Vernon. There he pauses, and, with head uncovered, 
in profound meditation, as if communing with some 
mighty spirit from the past, he stands silently gazing 
into the tomb of Washington. A sigh escapes from his 
bosom, tears fill his eyes ; humbled and satisfied, he 
turns from the sacred place and says, " I have seen 
enough of America now ; let me go home." 

But he had not seen all nor felt all. He had seen 
only the grave of a great patriot. There is a grave 
opened in our land to-day that shall have a mightier 
power, that shall shape vaster destinies. It is the grave 



16 

of a great martyr as well as patriot. Washington came 
down to his grave calmly, serenely, as the full-glowing 
sun sinks out of sight at evening, leaving in all hearts 
a feeling of sadness that he had departed, yet of joy 
that he had departed so gloriously. Lincoln comes 
down to his grave like the sun in his mid-day splendor, 
arrested by some mighty power, and plunged instantly 
into midnight darkness. 

But this martyr's death shall tell to future genera- 
tions the value of freedom. The future patriot, histo- 
rian, Christian, when he reads the history of the admin- 
istration now closed ; when he shall have visited the 
homes now desolated, and listened to the recital of sor- 
row that can never be written ; when he shall have 
visited a hundred battle-fields, and seen the soil strewed 
with the bones of noble freemen, and shall then come 
to the grave of Lincoln, and read there the lesson we 
are reading to-day, will have learned something of the 
price we have paid for liberty. 

But the tree of liberty is firmly planted upon our 
soil now. Its roots strike into half a million of free- 
men's graves ; its centre-root strikes to the bottom of 
our President's grave ; and there is no despot's hand 
can uproot that tree. It is well watered now, — watered 
by the blood of America's best ; and it will grow well. 
The meanest of America's sons who has freely bled in 
this struggle for liberty has shed better blood than any 
monarch on the globe has to shed. 

o. But this result, also, we think God will connect 
with this event, — a higher appreciation of justice. 

When the Lord gave promise to Abraham that he 
should become a great nation, he said, " For I know him 
that he will command his children, and his household 
after him, to do justice and judgment, that the Lord 



may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken 
of him." 

Justice is that quality which underlies all right gov- 
ernment, which secures it from the encroachments of 
evil, which guards the persons and rights of all the 
individual subjects of government. Indeed, it is the 
very foundation-stone on which the order and peace of 
society rest. 

If, on the one hand, rulers disregard justice, the per- 
petuity of government and the safety of the people are 
endangered : if, on the other hand, the people have a 
low sense of the sacredness of justice, it will be impos- 
sible for rulers to enforce it ; and the laws which are 
made for the bad will be ineffective, and the vicious 
will go unpunished. 

A time of national disorder and prostration occurred 
in Israel once, and God assigned the cause, and said, 
"No man careth for justice, nor any pleadeth for the 
truth." 

It is well known, that, for many years, our wisest and 
best statesmen have discovered, among both officers and 
people, a declension of the sense of justice; and they 
have experienced great anxiety on account of it. 

The indications of decline were unmistakable, There 
was apparent a very general neglect to enforce law 
upon transgressors, who became, consequently, bold and 
numerous, while many pleaded openly in favor of letting 
criminals go unpunished. German infidelity, which 
would abolish all penalties, and allow each man to 
avenge his own personal injuries, if he were strong 
enough to do so, found surprising growth here : so that 
spontaneous efforts to release the guilty from the hands 
of justice were quite as frequent as like efforts to bring 
them to justice. In some States, capital punishment had 



18 

been abolished, and there, too, the pardoning power had 
been exercised to an alarming degree-; so that crime 
had increased, and Government gave less pledge of 
security to person and property. 

How far this low sense of justice among us had been 
produced by slavery, which openly sets all justice at 
defiance, I stop not now to inquire ; but, certain it is, 
that, from a disregard of personal rights and private 
life, the life of the nation came to be disregarded, and 
organized treason was the result. And, strange to say, 
treason, which in all civilized countries is considered as 
the highest civil crime, and is punishable every- 
where by death, found so many in this nation to palliate 
it, that it was exceedingly difficult, and it has been 
difficult up to the present time, to brand it with its own 
native guilt. 

Now, it is one thing to guard and defend a man from 
the hands of an assassin ; it is quite another thing to 
bring the assassin to justice and punish him. One man 
maybe eminently qualified for the one work, another man 
for the other. It is one thing to defend a nation from 
the assaults of traitors ; it is quite another thing to lift 
up the down-trodden law and bring those traitors to 
justice. 

When our Heaven-favored nation was assaulted, and 
eight millions of her subjects, armed from her own 
armories, rose in hellish purpose to slay her, and un- 
known thousands through all our midst stood ready to 
her burial, Abraham Lincoln was called to her defence. 
Nobly did he take his stand between the foe and his 
unarmed victim. Never did the war of human ele- 
ments rage fiercer around a human ruler than around 
him. The mad legions of the foe surged up to the 
capital; they surrounded it; they began to close in; 



10 

enemies were in the city, and traitors in the Govern- 
ment-offices; senators trembled; secretaries turned 
pale; ministers said it was all over; and the enemy 
shouted, " On to the capital ! " 

But there stood the great man in the majesty of his 
mighty manhood, calm and undaunted, while great men 
quaked around him. With his eye upon the foe, and 
his arm outstretched to wave the flag of liberty over 
the nation committed to his charge, there he stood to 
command both the armies of the country and the 
admiration of the world. For that place, God had 
given him the qualifications, — firmness that saved him 
from faltering ; leniency to attract and fix the wavering ; 
buoyancy of spirit ; and faith in the right, which saved 
him from despairing. With a breadth of comprehen- 
sion and a power of execution which but few men of 
our age possess, he surveyed the real work to be done 
and at the same time estimated the agencies necessary 
to accomplish it, To the preservation of this Republic 
and its emancipation from the chains of slavery for all 
future time, he was called ; nor did he leave his post 
either to hurl back the shafts of malignity that fell harm- 
less at his feet from foreign thrones, or to join in the 
shouts of victories he had won at home. During the 
long dark years of his first term of administration he 
stood, till the enemy, crushed beneath the gathering 
forces of the nation, began to retire ; and, as they fell 
back, and the din of war subsided, and the smoke began 
to roll away, there was revealed to the gaze of the 
nations that colossal embodiment of Liberty still waving 
the flag which is dearer to humanity than any that 
ever floated on the breeze of heaven. And now, as 
that flag floated proudly from his hand, floated over the 
national capital, over the fallen rebel capital, over every 



20 

State of the old Union, we hear the voice of our Lin- 
coln shouting, "The nation is free, and slavery is dead ! " 
It is the voice of Lincoln ; but it is the voice of Freedom 
too, and she is shouting her eternal rights in the ear 
of old despotism. That voice dies not when it touches 
the shores of this continent. It rolls on ; the waves of 
ocean bear it; the winds of heaven waft it ; the light- 
nings of God flash it to every despot's throne on the 
globe. It is the voice that announces their doom ; and, 
from the time of Abraham Lincoln's administration 
onward, tyrants and traitors will tremble. 

But Mr. Lincoln had done his work. During the long 
night in which the assault upon the nation had been 
made, he had defended her, and had put the assailants 
to flight. Now when the morning dawns, he, satisfied 
with his work, and rejoicing in the prospect of a long 
and cloudless day of national prosperity, retires to his 
rest. 

Other work is to be clone now ; and what is it ? Last 
Friday night, and Saturday and Sunday and Monday, 
a scene of excitement prevailed in Washington : it con- 
tinues to the present hour. The assassins of our Presi- 
dent have fled; the officers of justice are in pursuit; 
the murderers shall be caught if possible. If taken, 
(which may Heaven grant!) what shall be done with 
them? Do I hear any one around me to-day pleading for 
their pardon and release ? Not one. The law says they 
shall be hung; and there is not a Christian or a philan- 
thropist on earth but would say from the depth of his 
heart, " The law is good : let them hang ! " 

But what shall we do with those other assassins who 
planned the death of the nation as well as of the Presi- 
dent, who put the dagger to the nation's breast, whose 
deadly aim was for the nation's life? What shall we 



21 

do with those men, guilty as Booth, who deliberately 
planned the slaughter of tens of thousands ; who urged 
their rebel hordes on to execute their plan ; who, like 
savages, starved and murdered our soldiers till the land 
is filled with mourning ? Are those men who planned 
this Rebellion and led it on less guilty than Booth ? Not 
one whit ! What shall we do with them ? is the ques- 
tion that now rises spontaneously in every patriot's 
mind. The question as yet is unanswered, and it begins 
to assume an importance in the minds of all. Grave 
issues are likely to arise from it, — issues that will 
touch the foundations of government and shape future 
destinies. 

But hark ! While the nation is uttering its wail of 
sorrow there comes another voice. We turn and look. 
No sooner does our President expire than we see ad- 
vancing to take his place one of determined mien and 
quick of step. In his voice there is a certain sound, 
and a flashing light in his eye. 

Who is this that cometh from Tennessee, with dyed 
garments from the fields of blood? We hear him 
answer, "I am Johnson, and I now speak with au- 
thority." But wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, 
and thy appearance like him that treadeth in the wine 
fat ? He answers, " Because I have trodden the wine- 
press alone, and of the people there was none with me ; 
I come from the scenes of secession and murder ; I have 
witnessed the deep, damning guilt of treason; there- 
fore will 1 tread down our enemies in my fury, and I 
will sprinkle their blood upon my garments, for the day 
of vengeance is in my heart, and the year of the 
redeemed is come." 

In the very presence of the lifeless form of our beloved 
Lhcoln, Mr. Johnson says, a I pity the deluded masses 



22 

of the Southern people ; but upon the leaders, the responsible 
men of this Rebellion, I would execute the penalty of the laiv." 

To that declaration there comes from the hearts of 
all loyal Americans a hearty Amen ; Amen comes from 
the desolated homes and hearts through all our land ; 
Amen comes from the graves where sleep our noble 
soldiers. 

In the name of our outraged, weeping nation, we 
say, Welcome, Johnson ! In the name of Heaven's in- 
jured innocence, in the name of Liberty, so long in 
chains, now rising in her beauty, we say to President 
Johnson, Welcome to the chair of National Govern- 
ment; and may the law of eternal justice ever encircle 
that chair ! 



ORDER OF EXERCISES. 



VOLUNTARY. 

A. H. WExNZELL, O KG AN 1ST. 

HTMJT. 

There's rest in the grave : 
Life's toils are all past, 
Night cometh at last. 

Uow calmly I rest 

In the sleep of the blest, 

Nor hear Life's storm rave 
O'er my green grassy grave I 

INVOCATION. 

K E V. JOHN E. W O O D. 

DIRGE. 

Unveil thy bosom, faithful tomb, 
Take this new treasure to thy trust ; 

And give these sacred relics room 
To slumber in the silent dust. 

SELECTIONS FROM SCRIPTURES. 

KEV. HARTFORD P. LEONARD. 

PKATEK. 

KEV. JOHN E. WOOD. 

HYMN. 

< aluily now in peace thou'rl sleeping 

In thy grave so low ; 
While sad Eve her tears is weeping. 

Emblem of our woe ; 
And the night-wind, without failing, 

Sadly o'er thee now is wailing. 



., 



24 

ai>i>uj-:ss. 

R E V. SETH REElt. 

PRATER 

1IYMX. 

No change of time shall ever shock 
My trust, Lord, in thee; 

For thou hast always been my rock, 
A sure defence to me. 

BESTEDICTIOIV. 



Committee of Arrangements. 



Richard L. Pease. 
John Vinson. 
James L. Barrows. 
Ralph Cleavland. 
Seth Reed. 



Hartford P. Leonard. 
James 15. Huxford. 
Shubael II. Norton. 
J. D. Usher. 
Joseph Athearn. 



Grafton N. Collins. 
John E. Wood. 
Jeremiah Pease. 
George Coffin. 
James M. Cooms, Jr. 



